


Watching you whets my appetite

by Baryshnikov



Series: Crossing the red-stained veil [11]
Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Asphyxiation, Control, Love, M/M, Tom doesn't understand what's he's feeling but to everyone else it's obvious, Violent Thoughts, what is love?
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-05-27
Updated: 2020-05-26
Packaged: 2021-03-03 03:08:31
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,299
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24397792
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Baryshnikov/pseuds/Baryshnikov
Summary: Tom didn't like losing control.
Relationships: Harry Potter/Tom Riddle
Series: Crossing the red-stained veil [11]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1520894
Comments: 11
Kudos: 89





	Watching you whets my appetite

Tom did not like losing control, in fact, everything he did was with the strictest sense of control; be it in his classes, or of his friends, or of himself, he always conducted control with an iron grip. 

Until now, anyway. 

It was already late, bordering on the edge of curfew, when Tom had slipped into the library unnoticed, and sat in the shadows of the restricted section, just to to watch _him_. 

_Harry Potter._

All he was doing was sitting there, staring at the same textbook he had been all evening--being so unbearably mundane--and yet, as Tom watched he could feel this heat building under his skin, collecting at his collar and spreading out, thick, over his neck. It made him itchy, like there was something actually underneath his skin, _inside_ him that was making him burn up. 

Tom licked his lips and shifted again, he'd already taken off his jumper, but now he reached up to work his fingers into the fabric of his tie, and began to pull it loose. 

It didn't help. 

Right at his core there was still this uncomfortable heat emanating out, engulfing his insides, and swallowing them down like the leviathan swallowing sea water. And with it came the familiar weight, this heaviness beating down on his chest that turned the air thick and sweet like treacle. 

Harry hadn't even looked at him yet and he was already losing his focus. 

Tom shook his head and raised a hand to rub against the back of his neck, sliding under his collar to where his shirt had scratched little red claw marks into his throat. There were similar markings on his wrists too, and anywhere else that the thickened fabric made contact with his skin.

Swallowing harder, saliva sticking to the back of his throat, Tom rubbed at his neck, his nails digging into his skin in a poor attempt to ease out this... _thing_ inside him. The one that made him stay here staring with an ache in his heart, like it had been filled with rocks that were now rubbing and chafing and grinding together--mashing him into a pulp from the inside out. 

It couldn't possibly be... normal to feel like this, could it? 

For how could it be normal to feel weak just by looking in someone's direction? Though, that was precisely why Tom kept doing it; because this had been happening for _weeks_ now, and it was getting distracting. People had started to notice how whenever Harry walked past Tom, his eyes would wander and his sentences broke apart inside his mouth, becoming wet, limp, things that flopped off his tongue. 

It was embarrassing. 

Harry was making him lose his edge, and Tom needed to put a stop to the straying of his heart, and to the throbbing of his pulse, and to the burning of his insides before he lost control completely. 

But all resolutions became smoke and ash when Harry turned a page of his book and Tom found himself mesmerised, his tongue running absently over his mouth as he watched Harry's hands. He could imagine them pinned behind his back, held still by Tom's own hands; gripping him hard as Harry squirmed--his legs becoming weak and his shoulders sagging forward because he couldn't take it anymore. 

Just as Tom couldn't fucking take it right now. 

But just as he was about to move, Tom felt a hand brush over his shoulders and a body dipping in far too close, someone's mouth close enough to Tom's ear to feel the heat of their tongue. Abraxas, always one for slithering into places he shouldn't. 

"You're still staring at him, I see," he murmured, that veneer of teasing coating every word.

"I'm allowed to watch," Tom snapped, the words not nearly as serene as they should have been, and Abraxas smiled at that, as though he knew why Tom was snapping. As though he could see inside him and knew that everything was practically coming apart at the seams and so many feelings were spilling out and making such a fucking mess. 

Maybe Tom should have just ignored him, after all, this was a private moment between him and Harry. But Abraxas wasn't moving away, in fact, he was settling himself, leaning against the back edge of Tom's chair, his arms folded over one another and his pointed chin pressing into his wrist as he leant forward.

"Why him?" he said, following Tom's eyes to Harry, still sitting at the desk staring blankly at that same book as though it was written in ancient runes that he couldn't possibly hope to read. 

Tom hummed a non-committal answer; he wasn't about to tell _Abraxas_ of all people that he watched Harry Potter because it made his insides shred themselves into ribbons that curled and twisted low in his stomach. 

"What do you want to do to him?"

Tom turned his head sharply, so that he could look properly at Abraxas' face. With all the provocativeness in the world, Abraxas inclined his own head to return the gaze, an eyebrow raised as though he _genuinely_ expected an answer.

"That's none of your business, Malfoy," he said coldly, before turning his gaze back to the object of his affections--obsession, some might say, based on just how many times Tom had snuck in here to watch him--who sat there so naively unaware. 

There were so many things that Tom wanted to do that they all jumbled up inside his head, twisting and melding, blending into one another until he could hardly form a coherent thought. 

"Oh, of course, it isn't," Abraxas continued, and Tom could practically hear the roll of his eyes, which was frankly rude, but he'd deal with that later.   
"But _everyone_ knows..." he said, leaning closer until the heat of his mouth was almost unbearable against Tom's neck, "...that you want to fuck him, Tom." Abraxas paused to add weight to his words before adding, " so what's the point in denying yourself?" 

"Get out," Tom spat, even as his breath hitched and his pulse thumped so heavy in his throat. Though, by the time he'd spoken those two syllables, Abraxas had already pushed his weight off the chair and started towards the exit--that little snake knew when to scarper. And his expensive shoes echoing against the floor and forcing Tom's heart into a new rhythm, one that was slower and deeper and so, _heavy_ that it felt like it might splinter his ribs. 

Tom shifted again, Abraxas' crude words still ringing in his ears, as he began to tap the heel of his own shoe against the wood of the floor and his hands continued twitching, incessantly, in his lap. He cracked the knuckles again and the sound stung the room, amplified by the silence and the emptiness. 

At the sound, Harry looked up, his eyes scanning slowly about the room. Whether it was unintentional or by design, his gaze lingered on the shadows where Tom sat, searching that square of darkness for longer than any of the others. It made Tom's heart squeeze tight, wringing itself out like laundry.

And he knew he _had_ to do something about this feeling before it chewed him up--pounding him between its teeth--until he didn't recognise himself anymore.

He clenched his jaw, tight, trying to take the time to breathe slow and deep, filling up his lungs with enough oxygen that it might calm the throbbing inside of him.

It didn't.

So Tom stood up, letting his chair scrape loudly over the floor as he did so. Harry looked up again, scanning the room for monsters lurking in the shadows; Tom swallowed, maybe he could stand to _lose_ a little control, just this once.

**Author's Note:**

> Apologies, I know this is underdeveloped and I probably shouldn't have posted it--I'll try and iron things out when I post the second chapter.


End file.
